Tuesday, December 4, 2012

A packet of records showed up on a new patient who has a pending appointment with me. It included this note from his previous neurologist:

"He's quite insistent on being allowed to get his drivers license back. When I refused to comply, he pulled out a gun and threatened me with it. Fortunately, his wife quickly took it from him and told me it wasn't loaded."

Can you do the exam with himm wearing one of those paper gowns? Kind of hard (but not impossible) to conceal a weapon in one of those. Is it ethical to speak to wife/regular caregiver and broach hte subject? Mary is right, all weapons should be considered "live" at all times.

If you don't believe this can happen, it did in our small town. An older patient was not happy and decided to start shooting at our local medical facility, if I remember right. Fortunately no one was killed, but security was tightened up after that episode.

One of the best things about small town living is the trust factor. Unfortunately this patient's actions ruined that.

Dr. Grumpy be thankful your patient's previous doctor gave you fair warning. You can now suit up in your bullet proof white coat.

NOTE: Guns do not kill people. People decide how they wish to operate a gun.

When my father, who had been a very calm and gentle person all his life, developed Alzheimers, he became paranoid, hostile and angry. He harassed neighbors with whom he'd never had a problem and threatened to blow up their house. I don't want to think about what could've happened if he'd owned a gun.

my non medical brother (non common sense as well) continued to supply shells / bullets to my Alzheimer afflicted father as it was his "right to bear arms".

This at a time Dad was increasing apt to leave the house at 1am with loaded shotgun, rifle, etc (no handguns) to seek out what was the disturbance (they lived on rural ranch). Increasingly he was paranoid. Although I found out later mom was also feeding him xanax to "keep him calm" (didnot work), the constitution waving brother brought shells into the house as fast as I could take them out. Luckily dad died without any mishap, and yes, I regret not taking legal action for custody.

Ahh.. re-reading the entry, it doesn't look like the other neurologist referred him, which is how I read it at first. I was a bit worried about how much of a grudge the other neurologist had with you, lol.

I am reminded of an ER (television series) episode where an elderly woman was dehydrated, or became so whilst waiting to be seen, which (apparently) precipitated a aberrant mental state where she picked up a gun (I forget how it came to be lying about, accessible - police officer momentarily taking off gun belt?) and ended up getting shot/killed by another officer when she started pointing the gun & making threats.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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